


Time Does Not Bring Relief

by cathema



Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: M/M, Time Travel, a gift for my good friend Pink, based on an artwork by Pink in Ink, can be read as platonic or romantic loceit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-11
Updated: 2021-01-11
Packaged: 2021-03-15 16:21:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,356
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28691634
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cathema/pseuds/cathema
Summary: To say that Logan is unnerved by the existence of Janus is an understatement. Janus is an enigma—elusive, complex, shrouded with mystery.Logan didn’t like it when things are complex. He liked it when things are predictable, when he could make logical sense out of what he sees. He’s long given up trying to understand what Janus is. On some days, he wonders if he was even real, if not for the growing collection of knickknacks from long ago and the distant tomorrow displayed on the small space by his study table. He wonders what stories haunt each object—engraved and etched on their worn-out surfaces—and feels his spirit come alive in anticipation to ask. Except, time and time again, he never does.
Relationships: Deceit | Janus Sanders & Logic | Logan Sanders, Deceit | Janus Sanders/Logic | Logan Sanders
Comments: 5
Kudos: 46





	Time Does Not Bring Relief

**Author's Note:**

> A gift to Pink in Ink, based on a lovely artwork they made.

The harsh afternoon sunlight streams through the library window, casting a bright white shape on the mahogany table on which Logan sat, thumbing through a history book. The standing fan whirs aggressively on the corner, but only blows the stifling air towards Logan’s direction.

Logan leans back against his seat, having become aware of the beads of sweat that have formed on his hairline and the way his short-sleeved white polo sticks on the entire length of his back. He feels icky and due for a shower soon.

He looks around the room, devoid of people on this particularly hot summer day when the air conditioning decided to break down. Only Logan would be daft enough to work on next semester’s syllabus at the one place he shouldn’t be, and he could already hear the displeasure laced around the words of his lone companion.

“You’re a masochist,” he is told. Logan takes a moment to regard Janus and his remarkably outlandish outfit comprising of a gray Victorian cloak, yellow leather gloves, and black combat boots. Logan can feel secondhand sweat pooling underneath his armpits. _He’s one to talk._

“I was distracted enough from the blistering heat until you showed up,” he answers with a huff, closing his book with a gentle thud. “One might faint at the sight of you.”

Janus cackles at that. “One of the many things my last suitor told me.”

“I’m indifferent to know that you’re as strange as you’ve always been.”

“Oh, you know how much it gets me off watching you be so accommodating to my presence.”

Logan rolls his eyes and says nothing. He gathers his belongings strewn neatly over the desk—his digital notepad, stylus, a thick folder of academic papers, and his watch—and places them all inside his messenger bag apart from the watch, which he clasps around his sticky wrist.

“What’s the time?” Janus asks, inspecting the tips of his gloved fingers. Logan has half a mind to ignore him. He’s convinced that Janus wasn’t really asking—the nonchalant inflection on his voice gave away that much. Small talk, for the sake of prolonging a conversation between two people who cared little for one another, is one thing Logan finds himself peeved at the most. Though this, to any onlooker, isn’t saying something; Logan is almost always peeved at the simplest of reasons.

He doesn’t understand why Janus asked, anyway. But he humors him and looks down at his watch. “3:42,” he says.

He watches Janus push himself off the table and walk towards the open window. The click of his boots echoes loudly through the library. “I must be going, then,” he states. “Villages to pillage, knights to tempt.”

Logan sighs. “It’s 2019.”

“I know. Dreadfully boring, isn’t it?” Janus looks back at Logan, eying him head to toe. “All fashion sense has just been thrown out the window.”

“I’m quite fond of my outfit.”

“Of course you are.”

Janus inserts his hand in his coat’s breast pocket and tosses it over to Logan who catches it with ease. The cool metal burns his warm palm and he lifts it close to his face. He stares at what he holds: a 19th-century silver coin stained in grime.

Janus takes one last look at the bookshelves surrounding them. “I’ll see you later, Logan,” he says. “And you might want to do something about your pants zipper.”

Logan looks down at his bottoms in alarm and sees that it’s actually zipped up. But when he lifts his head again, Janus is nowhere to be seen.

He would not see him again for another three months.

The next time they meet, Logan finds Janus leaning on the side of his car, a pensive look on his face as he takes a slow, deep drag from his cigarette. Janus has a hat on this time, his tall frame covered in a more modern blazer.

“I didn’t know you smoked,” Logan prompts. He watches the wisps of gray swirl in the air as Janus exhales.

“They ban nicotine in 130 years,” he says.

Logan doesn’t question it. “I’m driving off now. I’d offer you a lift, but inhaling secondhand smoke is just as dangerous and, unlike you, I don’t have the luxury of time to risk my health.”

A playful smirk ghosts Janus’s chapped lips. “Luxury of time,” he repeats. “Dear, who ever does?”

Janus drops the cigarette butt on the asphalt and presses his heel onto it. “Where you off to?”

“Meeting an old friend.”

“Logan has friends? Mind-blowing.”

“He wouldn’t cease his incessant calls until I agreed.”

“How inconvenient.”

“Quite.”

Janus steps away from the car, adjusting his sleeves. Logan can make out subtle scorch marks on the cuffs of his black dress shirt. On this rare occasion, Logan feels his annoyance morph into a strange bubble of concern that rises on his throat. A dog barks in the distance, and the words die on his tongue.

“I don’t suppose you could drop me off somewhere?” Janus suggests.

“I just told you that I won’t.”

“Did you? Must not have heard it, then.”

“Falsehood, you—”

Janus opens the door and clambers into the passenger seat. He wasn’t really asking, apparently.

The drive is quiet, apart from the soft murmurs of the radio playing a song Logan could not place. At the corner of his eye, he could see Janus with parted lips and humming along as he gazes at the passing buildings. Logan feels pinpricks of embarrassment in his chest for not being familiar with something from his reality while Janus is there, with singed sleeves and a bowler hat, silently mouthing the words like he knew them by heart. Logan clears his throat.

“Where to?” he says.

“The excitement lies in not knowing, don’t you agree?” Janus answers, something unknown lying under a thin veneer of a teasing tone.

“Falsehood.” Logan grips his wheel tight. “Knowledge is an incomparably valuable multi-purpose tool. The ‘excitement’, as you put it, lies in discovering the truth, not in shrouding it from your sight.”

Janus rolls his shoulders in exasperation. “Have you always aspired to be this dull?”

Logan ignores the question. “I would like to be on time for my meeting.”

Silence settles once more. Logan still hasn’t gotten his answer.

“They ban plastic sporks too,” Janus muses after a while. “Far too many accidents.”

The illogicality of that statement makes Logan’s head turn. “130 years is far too forward in the future for me to be concerned about,” he says, agitation seeping into his tense voice. He winces at his accidental display of vulnerability in place of usual stoicism. Maybe he shouldn’t have said anything.

“Ah.” Janus suddenly sits up, his eyes fixed at a certain spot on the road ahead. “Drop me off here.”

“What—” Logan pulls over at the side of the street near a Laundromat and a Deli. He watches Janus unbuckle his seatbelt and step out of the car in one fluid motion. Janus then bends down and tips his hat.

“Enjoy your date. _Adieu_ ,” he says with a grin before closing the door.

Logan keeps his gaze trained on the man with the black hat and expensive-looking blazer until he disappears into the crowd. The odor of cigarette smoke is gone, too, and he casts his eyes down on the empty seat, the warm presence of Janus now replaced by a spectacular golden lapel pin.

To say that Logan is unnerved by the existence of Janus is an understatement. Janus is an enigma—elusive, complex, shrouded with mystery.

Logan didn’t like it when things are complex. He liked it when things are predictable, when he could make logical sense out of what he sees. He’s long given up trying to understand what Janus is. On some days, he wonders if he was even real, if not for the growing collection of knickknacks from long ago and the distant tomorrow displayed on the small space by his study table. He wonders what stories haunt each object—engraved and etched on their worn-out surfaces—and feels his spirit come alive in anticipation to ask. Except, he never does time and time again.

There were instances when Janus stays around long enough for Logan to become accustomed to his company, sharing toast on Saturday mornings and watching orchestra performances by students at the Center of Music. But these moments are too far and few between, and Janus is more often gone than he is around that the term “friendship” doesn’t seem befitting of a description for their odd relationship.

As months turn to years of their acquaintance, Logan becomes increasingly aware of the feeling that gently stokes the embers of the hearth beneath his heart with every “See you later” Janus utters. It’s akin to the cold rush that follows after handling a hot mug of coffee during 8 AM classes. It’s an emotion he struggles to name. He eventually comes to know what it is.

He still refuses to name it.

It’s April, and Logan shivers from the breeze that’s still cool and chilly as he sits on the park bench with Janus, who stares with amusement at the scuffle across the street.

Janus has longer hair now, tied into a neat ponytail, with his golden fringe tucked under a stylish hat. “You know,” he slurs, the ring hooped around his bottom lip glistening from the sunlight, “it’s quite fascinating to see these bastards try and do something about it.”

By “it,” he means the sign on top of the bookstore Short Passages which is now, by some unexplainable circumstance, missing some letters. Logan glances at it once more.

“You did make quite a statement,” he snorts.

“I didn’t do this.”

“It says ‘Hot Ass.’ Who else would?”

“Did you see me steal it?”

Logan didn’t.

Janus opens his satchel and takes out a dark blue box. He hands it to Logan who dutifully lifts the lid. It’s a neon fridge magnet from Crofter’s Organic in commemoration of its 50th Anniversary that hasn’t happened yet.

“Why do you keep giving me these things?”

“Mementos. Someone has to hold onto them.”

“They’re yours then?”

“Do I look like I would own that tacky magnet?”

Logan takes offense to this. “You’re incorrigible.”

The trees rustle with the sudden gust of wind. Logan could smell the cologne from Janus’s pressed collar. “For what it’s worth,” he adds, “I am grateful for this.”

“Oh honey, only you would be,” Janus laughs.

The shopkeeper of the vandalized bookstore crosses the street and walks up to them. “Excuse me, sirs,” he starts, “but have you been seated here long?”

Logan shakes his head.

“We’re just here for the show,” Janus answers coyly.

The shopkeeper grunts and leaves them alone once more. Another question pops inside Logan’s head.

“How do you always know where I am?”

“It doesn’t take too much to know,” Janus tells him as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “You’re predictable.”

It feels like a pinch on the arm, but Logan has become immune to the ache. He’s heard it multiple instances before and knows he has no right to contradict it. After all, he wears it like a badge on his sleeve—as clear as the lenses of his black-rimmed glasses, as polished as his brown leather shoes—a mark of an ordinary man.

“Oh, don’t take offense to it.” Janus waves the air dismissively, as though sensing the webs of self-deprecation that meander along the stretches of Logan’s mind. “That’s what I like about you. You’re consistent. You don’t change. I could be gone for five years and find you still wearing blue ties, drinking black coffee, and rereading _The Ultimate Trivial Pursuit Question and Answer Book_.”

Logan slowly slides his thumb across the smooth surface of the magnet. Children run past, leaving a trail of gleaming bubbles and echoes of their laughter. A man plays the violin in the distance, thanking passersby who toss him their spare change. The shopkeeper continues to yell in distress over his signage.

“Five years is far too long,” Logan murmurs.

Janus taps his knee. “Is it? I wouldn’t know.”

It’s Christmas Eve when Janus knocks on Logan’s door to ask if he wanted coffee. Logan hadn’t seen him in a full year. He grabs his scarf and wool sweater and braces the frigid air that envelops their bodies. They’re the only ones inside the cafe when they arrive and they settle down at the table by the frosted window.

For the first time, Logan asks, “How was your last travel?”

He watches Janus take a long sip of his black coffee in anticipation. He only notices now the thin scar that has marred Janus’s porcelain cheek.

“Pardon my shock. You’ve never asked before,” Janus replies with a chuckle.

Logan places his hands on the sides of his coffee cup. “It’s difficult when you’re always rushing off.”

“Not always.”

“Right.”

Janus leans his cheek on the palm of his propped up arm. His gaze pierces through Logan’s skull, clouded by an unreadable emotion. “I met someone.”

Logan blinks. “Pardon?”

“He was spirited but kind. His voice could make flowers bloom. I never knew a smile could look like a thousand splendid suns.” He laughs. Logan recoils at its emptiness. “We were married for a few years, even. Had a lovely house in the countryside.”

Logan clenches his jaw, a flurry of apologies and expressions of regret drumming against his ribcage. Despite this, he says instead, “But you left.”

“Brilliant observation.”

“How come?”

Janus merely shrugs. “I had a craving for sushi.”

Logan is silent as Janus sips his drink once more and hums along to the holiday song softly playing in the background.

“Want to hear a joke?” Janus says when no one speaks. “What do you call a pigeon that can’t find its way back home?”

“What?”

“A pigeon.”

Logan purses his lips. Janus reaches for something in his pocket and places it gently across the table. Logan catches his breath as he gazes upon a bronze pocket watch. “This is beautiful,” he manages to say.

Suddenly, all sarcasm ebbs away into tenderness as Janus answers, “So was its last owner.”

Logan touches the bow, the crown, and the entire arc of the watch’s body. Every part of it is proof that it was lovingly cared for. So much passion and emotion ghost the well-polished metal that it burns Logan’s skin. It was far too much. “I can’t accept this.”

Janus leans back and folds his arms across his chest. “Tell me, Logan, what would you do if our roles were switched?”

It doesn’t take Logan long to think. “Speak to philosophers. Go on debates.”

“What else?”

“Visit libraries and read.”

“And?”

Logan looks down at the watch. “Uhm.”

“Have you ever envied me?” Janus is still staring at him.

“Truthfully?”

“You’re not one to lie, are you?”

Logan takes a moment to respond, wrestling not with his answer but the cruel honesty of it. “No,” he says, “I pity you.”

It only lasts for a millisecond but Logan sees Janus’s eyes widen before he bursts out laughing. Logan doesn’t join in, merely watching their mugs quake along with the resonating sound of Janus’s chuckles. When Janus begins to settle down, he heaves a satisfied sigh. “Oh,” he then breathes, “look.”

Logan lifts his head to see Janus staring out the window with a smile. “It’s snowing.”

They watch the white flecks dance around the air. The pocket watch that lays on top of Logan’s open palm ticks ever on.

There is a sonnet Logan came across once. It wasn’t the kind of poetry Logan was partial to but it stuck with him because of its opening line:

“ _Time does not bring relief; you all have lied._ ”

He stares at the pocket watch he now carries with him safely attached to his belt loop. He wonders where Janus is and what he’s doing. What revolts has he initiated? Which lover is he dancing with under the glow of the moonlight? How much time has he spent watching himself wither and age until he decides to jump into a different timeline, charming and young again?

And, with the passing of seasons, does Janus ever stop to think of him?

Logan would never know. Because Janus would not come again for the next five years.

It is summer when Logan comes home and finds Janus waiting by the door. He almost drops his keys, stunned by the jolt of electricity that coursed through his veins. A scar now covers the entire left half of Janus’s face. He stares at it, then meets Janus’s eyes. The unspoken words scald his throat. Despite the wrinkled, flawed, broken skin, Janus is beautiful, and Logan, in spite of himself, in spite of the years of being trapped alone with his loneliness, tells him, “Welcome back.”

Janus says nothing. He stretches out his arm. Logan does the same, opening his palm to receive whatever trinket Janus had gotten him this time, caught off-guard when Janus uncurls his empty fist and holds Logan’s hand instead.

No words are exchanged. Logan takes him into his home, where he makes the same black coffee, tosses the same blue tie into the laundry hamper, and tucks away the same _Ultimate Trivial Pursuit Question and Answer Book_ from his kitchen counter.

Janus stays for the time being.

They spend summer afternoons cooling down at the university library. They spend evenings drinking wine while watching the news. They spend mornings tending to the indoor plants Janus decided to decorate Logan’s apartment with. “It’s so dead in here, you could mistake it for a funeral home,” he had told him.

Days turn to weeks. Weeks turn to months. Janus doesn’t leave.

But Logan knows Janus. He knows him too well. After all, “ _Time does not bring relief._ ” On a peaceful night, as they sit side by side on the couch, Logan feels the hushed whispers of tenderness and warmth between them that strip him bare of his layers. Janus had just finished braiding his hair and wrapping it up into a bun, his scarred face open and exposed. “How’s it look?” he asks.

Logan tilts his head. “Pleasant.”

Janus snorts. Logan feels his hand rise and his fingertips gently graze the blemished cheek. He doesn’t miss how Janus leans in ever so slightly to the featherlike touch.

“I pray it was worth it,” he whispers.

Janus hums as he tucks his stray strands behind his ear. “I don’t seem to remember.” Logan knows it’s a lie.

“Do you know how long it’s been?”

“I never noticed. But I went looking for that small cafe that sold those delightful mallow-filled beignets down the street. It’s gone now.”

“What if I am too the next time you come back?”

Logan catches on to the tiny flecks of emotion. The amusement. The contemplation. The apathy. Janus settles for a playful smirk. “The excitement lies in not knowing,” he tells him again. “Don’t you agree?”

The digital clock by the stove beeps. The time glows a bright, violent red in the darkness. Logan could blame it on the hour. He could blame it on the alcohol he downed over dinner. In the stillness of the night, he says, “You should just stay.”

Janus stares at him. Through his bright eyes, Logan unmasks all the untold stories he carries deep in his ribcage. Only then does Logan start to understand. Janus was never his to keep, not even under the mercy of time.

“You know,” Janus mulls, “life is amazing, isn’t it? A whirlwind, a tremor, a flickering flame. To even think of spending it here…”

He closes his eyes and sighs with satisfaction. “…what a waste that would be.”

Logan breathes out. In that small space they share, he lets Janus rest his head on the nook of his neck.

The following day, Logan awakes to the songs of birds greeting the morning sun as the colors of summer melt into the snug embrace of a new season.

Janus is no longer there.

**Author's Note:**

> 1) "Time does not bring relief; you all have lied" - a sonnet by Edna St. Vincent Millay  
> 2) "Life is amazing, isn’t it? A whirlwind, a tremor, a flickering flame." - lifted from Spiritfarer


End file.
